TRANSCEND articles: Peace Studies, Peace Movements, Peace Praxis

Peace Studies, Peace Movements, Peace Praxis

by Kai Frithjof Brand-Jacobsen
21st of November 2004

Contributions to a dialogue and working to build peace

By Kai Frithjof Brand-Jacobsen,

Co-Director, TRANSCEND

www.transcend.org

The brilliant pedagogue Paulo Freire once said “theory without practice is verbalism, practice without reflection equals activism.” Practice and reflection, theory and action together, equal praxis.

There is a significant challenge for those of us working in peace movements, peace research and struggles for social justice, indeed for all people world wide, to draw the lessons from these words. After the global demonstrations against war on February 15^th 2003 – said to be the largest internationally coordinated demonstrations by human beings in history – many went home and asked themselves “what next?” “What else can I do?” After the war began some weeks later on March 20^th, many more felt as if we had failed, as if those working for peace and to prevent the war from taking place had been defeated. Following the recent presidential elections in the United States and the devastation wrought upon Fallujah and in the on-going wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, many people more, on every single continent, see the rise and ascendancy of militarism, war making and imperialism, and are left searching for a response, and alternatives.

Around the world, whether in London or New York, Kabul, Cluj-Napoca, Bogota, Fallujah, Ramallah, Colombo, Moscow, Johar or Pyongyang, many of us, when faced with conflicts – whether in our own personal lives or conflicts, violence and wars in our communities, countries and globally – feel powerless. Despite the rise in the number of peace studies programmes at universities across the world, and organizations, networks and institutions engaged in peacebuilding, conflict transformation, alternative dispute resolution, nonviolence, and peace education – to name just a few fields – the majority of us are often left with the feeling that conflicts and violence, global military and economic/political systems, are things over which we have little power and little say. While we may go out to demonstrate, and may even take part in organizing, engaging with, and mobilizing people in our communities, holding workshops or giving papers, lectures, seminars, and speeches at universities and public gatherings, we are still challenged – and challenging ourselves – to try and find what more we can do, how we can be effective, and how we can find ways that people, individuals, groups, communities, and organizations at many different levels can contribute to working to transform conflicts constructively and to transcend and overcome all forms of direct, structural and cultural violence, working for peace and social justice.

We should not belittle or undermine what is actually happening, and one of the challenges we’re often faced with is that people frequently don’t see the wide range of activities and initiatives taking place, or their own power and ability to act. The number of organizations engaged in peacebuilding and conflict transformation world-wide, for example, has increased significantly over the past fourteen years, and while many of those most often focused upon by researchers and writers are larger institutions and non-governmental organizations engaged in peacebuilding and conflict transformation in war affected countries, there are also organizations, networks and groups within each of our communities across the globe and on every continent that are working to address and transform problems and challenges facing us in our communities, our countries, and internationally. Often, those coming in from the outside may be part of the challenge, sometimes serving to re-enforce and strengthen institutions and systems which are at the root causes of war and violence, dependent upon state- and outside donor-funding and sometimes unable or unwilling to challenge deeper roots and dynamics of war and the geo-political and strategic interests of their donors, working to bring an end to ‘direct violence’, but not touching deep structural or cultural violence and injustices, or their own home-countries contributions to wars. Just as often, however, the ties and networks we are forming across borders are helping us to better understand and learn from each other, and to join our efforts and actions, uniting and mobilizing as alliances in which we are each working within our communities to deal with the contradictions and issues we face, and linking together to do more together than we can apart, going to both the root causes and the effects and impacts of war – direct, social, economic, cultural and political – and working to transcend them. More and more these links are helping us to build networks and dialogues, exchanging experiences, and enriching ourselves through learning of each others’ methods, the challenges and difficulties we face, and the many different ways in which we are addressing them.

Together with this, peace studies, development organizations, UN agencies and researchers have – systematically over the past ten years but with roots even before that – begun gathering together ‘best practices’ and lessons-learned on everything from strengthening and supporting local capacities for peace, empowering communities to address and transcend violence, war to peace transitions, to post-war reconciliation, recovery and healing. In recent years, a number of publications – peace direct’s “Unarmed Heroes,” Fredrik Heffermehl’s “Peace is Possible,” the works of the European Platform for Conflict Prevention, the Collaborative for Development Action, the Oxford Research Group, and many, many others – have begun to gather together stories and experiences of what individuals and organizations have done to bring an end to war and fighting and to transform conflicts constructively through peaceful means. In other cases, increasing study and gathering of experiences, though there needs to be much more, also focuses on transforming conflicts before they become violent, looking at what we can do and how we can act to prevent violence before it erupts.

At the same time, practitioners, activists, organizations and movements on the ground are also drawing together, weaving a huge tapestry of experiences of social mobilization and empowerment, community action, nonviolent struggle, and the peace work that often goes on at the grass-roots coming from within communities searching for ways to confront and overcome the violence we are experiencing, and to help build real, effective, and constructive alternatives. Jorgen Johansen has increasingly proposed that we begin to systematically gather together stories and experiences in nonviolent struggle from around the world, from the communities and people who are carrying them out, looking not only at what is happening, but also how it is happening, how it is being done, what it’s being done for, and how we can learn from these experiences. In this we are putting into practice lessons learned from Gandhi and many others and responding to the concrete needs and realities we experience, weaving our goals and objectives, our means and methods, together, and recognizing that it is not only necessary to know and to see clearly what it is we are against, what it is we are saying no, basta to, but we also need to have ideas of what we say yes to, and many different yeses – to be able to develop together, through creativity, dialogue and struggle constructive alternatives that can help us go beyond structures, dynamics, cultures and practices of war and violence and global systems of apartheid and rising militarism.

And, going one step further, to begin to ask ourselves what we would put forward as structures, dynamics, cultures and practices of peace and social, environmental, local, community, and global justice: ie. what types of communities and what type of world we would like to live in, how we would like them to look, and how we would like to be able to deal with the conflicts and challenges facing us. Encouraging a thousand dialogues, proposals, discussions, and action, to share, develop, encourage, and bring these visions – and serious economic, social, political, cultural, intellectual and human work – together. In doing this, for many of us, we are not only talking about ‘peace’ as the absence of direct violence, but also as the transcending and transformation of the much deeper violence built into our social, economic and political structures, and the cultures which reinforce and make these seem normal and acceptable: ie. deep structural violence and cultural violence. Of working not only to end particular wars because they are what we are seeing at that moment in the coverage of the media – while many wars and low-intensity violence around the world are completely ignored – but of working also to overcome global political and military systems and cultures: ie. the base that makes war possible as an institution and policy option. For many years and still today in Latin America and other parts of the world it is very common to hear people say “don’t talk to us about peace. What we need is justice”. Increasingly, what we have come to recognize and learn as peace and social justice movements world-wide is that there can be no real meaningful peace without justice, just as there can be no true justice without peace. This is more than just tautology. It is the bringing together of two deep traditions and movements working to overcome all forms of violence, injustice and oppression, local and global, and to build the space for real participation, meeting basic needs, and improve quality of life, social, economic, and political democracy, freedom, and hope in our communities. From this sense, and as Johan Galtung has said “Peace is a revolutionary idea; ‘peace by peaceful means’ defines that revolution as nonviolent. That revolution is taking place all the time; our job is to expand it in scope and domain. The tasks are endless; the question is whether we are up to them.”

These initiatives are there and are growing, but at the moment they still touch the lives of only a very small number of people; though a number which is growing every single day. While the majority of people do not support war and want an end to violence, there is still the challenge of “what can I/we do to get there?” and what can we do both as individuals, communities, and as organizations and movements. In MA and PhD programmes in peace studies around the world many students upon graduating when asked if they feel they now have the skills, tools and knowledge to do the work in practice say “no”. They have been to brilliant discussions and analysis, they have had the chance to learn about and understand many aspects of how and why things are happening in different parts of the world, and they have written and read and learned about different approaches to mediation, negotiation, and conflict resolution, but often, and for the most part, they do not feel that they have the skills, tools, knowledge and abilities to contribute actively themselves to peacebuilding and conflict transformation, in their own lives, their communities, and the world, and to respond to and address the challenges and issues we are facing in our communities and world-wide, ie. the very reason quite often they may have begun peace studies in the first place. Even more broadly, many of us, when confronted by what we see happening, presented to us in the media, in talks, books, and discussions, feel overwhelmed, sad, angry, frustrated, and, often, disempowered, with these feelings reinforced and deepened by programmes which focus primarily or solely upon analysis, and have not taken the steps – encouraged and demanded by creativity and the depth of the challenges we are facing – to come up with constructive, viable, and meaningful proposals for what can be done, and what can we do to act, linking theory and practice, analysis, reflection and doing/transformation.

Looking a bit more at peace studies, imagine students graduating from mechanical engineering, flight school, or schools training doctors for surgery not knowing how to repair cars, fly safely, or perform surgery. Or, to look at it from another angle, imagine going to a doctor and being told that you have cancer, and then the doctor walks out of the room, never to return. Diagnosis, analysis, understanding and mapping the challenges and issues we are facing are essential, as are the theoretical and conceptual tools which help us to make sense of what is happening around us and what can be done. Deepening, improving and spreading these is important. Unless we can clearly understand what is happening and why – seen from many different perspectives – we will be unable to come up with effective alternatives or to ensure that we are addressing the root causes of the problems. Often, we may simply end up repeating and internalizing ourselves the very same things we’re working to overcome/transcend. We recognize and expect, however, that when doctors and medical practitioners diagnose what is happening they also do prognosis – helping us to understand and see different possibilities for how things might develop further – and therapy – come up with concrete, viable, constructive and practical proposals for what can be done, and working to implement them. When training medical practitioners, pilots, and engineers, we also feel that it is important that they are not only able to understand and analyze what the problems are, but that they can also work constructively to come up with proposals for what can be done, to heal, to repair our cars or fix our bridges or irrigation systems, to fly safely. When it comes to peace studies and peace research, as well as to peace movements and peace work globally, this remains a significant challenge. While we identify, map, critique, and oppose wars, militarism, and the politics and structures which contribute to them, we are still at the earliest stages of taking our efforts to the next steps: to linking challenge and critique with constructive alternatives, and to engage, mobilize, and reach out to people in our communities, countries and world at every level to see that there are alternatives, to understand the root causes and dynamics of war, and to see also what we can do, how we can refuse to contribute and be complicit, and how we can instead organize and develop our communities in many different ways, to meet our basic human needs, and to realize/build, the communities and world we wish to live in. Another world is possible – if we work to build it. There is a lot that has been done in the past decades that has been tremendous, and that is continuing to be done now, every day, in many spaces of the world. This should be learned from, celebrated, appreciated and built upon, but much, much more is needed. The simple fact that many peace studies departments and programmes become very isolated and insulated, often looking at and discussing how they can go solve conflicts in other parts of the world, in communities other than they’re own, but nearly completely neglecting what is happening in and/or being done by their own country, or our own responsibility as academics, students, and researchers and what we can do, and how our action or inaction can contribute either to supporting, reinforcing and making war possible, or help to contribute to building peace and transcending, transforming war and violence, shows the tremendous need to bring peace studies out of theoretical/academic crevices, to enter into a thousand dialogues, and to strengthen, deepen and improve theory by linking it with practice, need, and social/human responsibility.

Taking the metaphor and learning from the fields of health and medicine one step further: in many countries around the world today we have health education – including often education in basic hygiene, first aid, sexual education, reproductive health, etc. – in elementary and secondary schools, through formal and non-formal education. Diagnosis and therapies are basic elements of these. Many universities train doctors, nurses, medical practitioners, researchers, scientists and the entire gamut of health practitioners and professionals. There are health clinics, NGOs working with health campaigns and health promotion and providing medical services, government health campaigns, hospitals, pharmacies, ayurvedic medicine, homeopathy, counseling, massage, and much, much more. Beyond simply ‘healing’ from diseases and negative health or illness – both their causes and effects/symptoms – there are also efforts to find how we can exercise and live healthy lives – mentally, physically, socially, culturally, economically, etc. – and what we can do to address and remove the root causes of many sicknesses and diseases (in many traditions and approaches to healing, looking not just within the body of the individual but also to their life-style, environment, community and context). While there are many challenges and shortcomings when it comes to how we address health, sickness and disease in our lives, communities, and globally, on a wide-range of levels we have developed incredibly elaborate and comprehensive systems and mechanisms – from thousands of yeas ago to today – to try to improve health and well-being and to overcome and address illness and disease.

In our existence as human beings to date, we have not yet done the same for peacebuilding and developing our capacities, skills, tools, knowledge, resources and institutions within our communities to transform and address conflicts constructively, through peaceful means. While nearly any child above the age of twelve in most countries in the world can easily give the names of ten wars or ten military leaders or heroes from throughout history, there are very, very few, including few professors, members of parliament, teachers and students of peace studies, who can give us the names of ten nonviolent leaders, ten nonviolent social movements, or ten conflicts that have been transformed constructively, through peaceful means. It is not that they haven’t and don’t exist, it’s just that we haven’t and don’t learn about them. While we have text-books filled with the history and dates of war and violence, war woven into our literature, political science, international relations and economics, and monuments of men on horseback celebrating a culture and history of war, military parades and memorials, training camps and military bases world-wide and global military expenditures reaching towards one trillion dollars a year, we do not make the same investments in our communities and world-wide to develop our capacities to deal with conflicts effectively, through nonviolence, creativity, and empathy, and to actively resist war and violence.

The hidden sides of history – of peace movements, nonviolent struggles, the role and contributions of women, marginalised peoples and cultures, indigenous communities, colonized peoples, national liberation struggles, and much, much more – remain for us to unearth, share and discover. Tremendous work has been done in these areas in many countries over the last decades – by women’s movements, indigenous groups, liberation struggles and nonviolence peace workers and others – and there is much more which can still be done, including helping to bring stories, practices and experiences often left out to the forefront, helping us to learn from our incredibly rich history and the legacy of people’s power and movements from around the world. Why should ‘women’s studies’ be marginalised into particular departments, while ‘mainstream’ economics, politics, and history often continue to be taught only from the perspective and recording the history of one gender? Why in the United States are ‘African American History’ and ‘Native American History’ separate courses, while ‘mainstream’ history continues, in most textbooks and universities, to be that of white, European male settlers/colonizers? Why, when studying the history of colonization and imperialism in general historical textbooks and histories (not discussing specialized courses), do we learn only from the perspective of the colonizers – the historical equivalent of learning about rape or genocide only from those who have committed it. This is not to suggest that we shouldn’t have specific courses and degrees, indeed we need more of them, but that it is not necessarily just a question of either or. To look at it from the point of view of peace studies: yes we should have and need more specialized courses in peace studies, conflict transformation, peacebuilding, reconciliation and healing, and also to introduce peace education into all levels of schooling, from elementary to post-doctoral, and through both formal and non-formal education, stretching also beyond and outside of the school and reaching towards our communities, organizations, media, political and economic institutions, but there are also ways in which peace education can be woven in throughout, into our study of economics, politics, sociology, history, international relations, and much, much more, addressing all levels and fields of teaching and curricula. Peace studies, at best, can help us also to look not only at the curricula/content, but also at the pedagogy/methodology and the way we learn, teach, and develop dialogue between the two. The suggestion is that rather than only developing as specialized ‘courses’ and degree programmes (for we certainly do need courses specifically in these fields, much more than we need the many thousands of courses in war studies around the world), we need to rethink and re-evaluate all aspects of our education, text books, public monuments, political institutions and economic institutions and media to see in what ways they contribute to the promotion of violence, gender, race, generation, cultural, and national injustices, discrimination and inequities, and how we wish to transcend, transform, and improve them.

Conflicts, and peace, do not exist just for experts, governments and non-governmental organizations, and they are important enough that we may need to do more than only demonstrating, coming to talks, and signing checks or petitions (though all of these can be important and necessary elements). Conflicts, like life and breathing, are natural. Whatever our culture, generation, gender, nationality, politics, beliefs, whether we live in cities or rural areas, whether we come from the global south or the global north, are rich or poor, we have all experienced and experience conflicts. Violence is what happens when we have systematically failed to deal with conflicts constructively, when we have mismanaged and ignored them, when we have developed deeply unequal, destructive and unjust social, economic and political systems, when we have invested systematically in developing, maintaining and promoting the institutions and use of violence, and/or when we have identified violence as a means for achieving our goals. What is important is to recognize that (1) conflict and violence are not the same thing: what we are really talking about is working to find ways to transform conflicts constructively, and through peaceful means, and to transcend and end violence – direct, structural, and cultural – and that (2), while we may wish to train and develop peace workers in the same way we train and educate doctors, engineers, artists and many others, it may also, just as with health, be important for all of us to learn and develop – and empower ourselves and each other – with skills, methods, techniques, strategies and approaches for what we can do to contribute to building peace and to transforming conflicts, in our own lives, our communities, our countries, and internationally, through peaceful means.

Drawing upon experiences in Israel-Palestine, the United States, Iraq, Afghanistan, Norway, Colombia, Canada, Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal, Somalia, the UK, Romania, Chechnya and many other parts of the world, there are at least five (together with many more) broad tasks that we can identify for peace work, and to deepen and strengthen our efforts:

Conflict transformation by peaceful means – ie. to actually transform conflicts using empathy, nonviolence and creativity and working to meet the needs of all the parties, including conflicts in our own lives, organizations, communities, countries, and internationally

Ending violence – normally considered as ‘cease-fires’, but also meaning ending violence in all its forms, from the micro-level to the macro, including physical, emotional, psychological and verbal, working to end domestic violence, sexual violence, and the institutions and structures of violence and war

Addressing Root Causes – including peacebuilding and meeting people’s basic human needs as well as transforming deep structures and deep cultures of violence, transforming social, economic, and political systems which are themselves rooted upon and based in violence and inequality, including creating at every level social, political, and economic democracy – people’s power

Building Peace Resources – creating, developing, strengthening our skills, tools, capacities, institutions and resources, within ourselves, our communities, countries, and internationally, for peacebuilding, resisting violence, and transforming conflicts constructively, including developing peace organizations in our communities which we can be involved in, the creation of the global Nonviolence Peaceforce (www.nonviolentpeaceforce.org), Ministries for Peace, peace education, peace journalism, peace institutes, and much, much more

Healing – from the visible and invisible effects of violence, including reconciliation, both psychologically, between and within individuals and communities, politically, socially, economically, and being able to apologize and forgive, woven into textbooks, monuments, removal of the cult and celebration of war and superiority, and including not continuing and repeating the very acts which require healing from in the first place

Over the past 150 years there have been three broad generations of peace movements, all of which can be found in the world today existing side by side. The first, developing clearly from the mid-19^th century and continuing today was governments/states saying that war and peace are too important to leave up to the military, leading to the rise of inter-state bi-lateral and multilateral mechanisms for resolving conflicts, the first and second Hague Appeal for Peace, the League of Nations and International Court of Justice, the United Nations, the Nuclear and Chemical and Biological weapons non-proliferation treaties, the International Criminal Court, etc. The second, beginning around the same period but really taking shape in the early 1910s, through the 20s, 30s, and 40s, and developing more broadly and deeply form the 50s to today, is made up of citizens saying that peace is too important to leave up to states and military, with the rise of peace research, peace institutes, peace education, peace journalism, nonviolent social movements and people’s struggles, satyagraha, the women’s marches, peace and civil rights movements, the third Hague Appeal for Peace, creation of Nonviolent Peaceforce, the Geneva Initiative for Israel-Palestine, and much, much more. The third generation, beginning over the last ten years and still in its earliest phases, says that peace is too important to leave up to superficial approaches: if we want peace, we need to be willing to prepare for peace, to study, to learn, to work, to create, to build, to do, and to build and develop our capacity to transform systems and structures of war, in our countries and globally (including economic, political, and military war systems), to address and overcome the root causes of violence, to have the courage to say no, basta! and to actively resist, both in words and in practice, and link together with the hundreds of thousands and millions of others around the world actively resisting war and violence, on all sides, in all its forms, and to find together effective, committed, and creative ways to struggle for peace. To address the eleven fault lines – gender, generation, political, security, economic, social, cultural, national, territorial, human/nature, foreign/world relations – and to see what are therapies are, working to bring about the transformations necessary to address them. In this there isn’t one single answer or method. Our plurality is one of our greatest strengths. Finding ways that people, from many different backgrounds – workers, grandparents, rural communities, politicians, campesinos, students, shop owners, teachers, artists, journalists, writers, truckers, shipworkers, scientists, researchers, and many, many more – can contribute, can do things in their lives and their communities, individually and together, is an important challenge and task for us.

The collapse of the Berlin Wall and implosion of the Soviet Union was preceded by years and decades of courageous struggles and work by peace movements and peace researchers, as was the ending of apartheid, the overthrow of the Marcos regime in the Philippines, the overthrow of Suharto in Indonesia, and on-going struggles for economic, political, and social democracy (from demos kratos = people’s power) and justice. In each of these cases, it happened often in contexts in which many people, for years and decades, had said that no change is possible, that nothing can be done, that there is/are no alternatives (TINA). It happened, in part, by our learning that There Are Many Alternatives (Tama!), and by having the courage to recognize that we are the ones, all of us, in our many different ways at different levels, who need to work to bring them about.

The first journal published by the world’s first peace institute, PRIO in Norway, was called the “Bulletin of Peace Proposals” – looking not only at diagnosis/analysis, but also (both/and) at what can be done, and having the courage, creativity and responsibility to come up with ideas and proposals for alternatives. Gradually, developing from this and peace research and peace movements over decades and in many countries, perestroika = restructuring, glasnost = openness, together with novoe politicheskoe myslenie = new political thinking, and common security, the outcome of decades of active peace research, peace work and peace movements, and also: a call for a new global peace movement for us today, accepting neither war nor terrorism – state, individual, economic, political, or military – weaving together the social justice and peace movements world-wide and people who feel that alternatives to war and violence are both possible and necessary, resisting war and violence in all their forms, creating spaces for dialogue and peacebuilding, and mobilising – socially, economically, politically, culturally, individually, collectively – to bring forward and actively build alternatives. February 15^th, the Landless Movement in Brazil, the Living Democracy and Save Narmada Movements in India, the Assembly of the Poor in Thailand, the Chilean slum dwellers associations, the World/Asian/European/African/American Social Forums, Focus on the Global South, International South Group Network, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, TRANSCEND, and the tens and hundreds of thousands of groups, affinity circles, peace studies programmes, organisations, movements, dialogues, and initiatives linking millions, and billions, of people world wide.

On February 15^th, and March 20^th 2003 (the day the war on Iraq, which had actually been going on for many months and years, is said to have started) we did not fail. The failure was in the institutions, structures and decisions to go to war. The mobilisation which took place, which is continuing to take place, was huge. In it, we are transforming cultures, structures, and paradigms. We are reaching beyond powerlessness and developing together our voices, our methods and our practices. We are turning hope, and the search for a better world, into method.

This is a new superpower finding its wings and its roots. A super power built upon power for and with rather than over and against. A power which comes from a thousand sources and thousand roots of creativity, hope, discipline, commitment, joy and determination, and which is not seeking to enforce a new dogma or ‘truth’, but to create the spaces for many truths, and the celebration, hospitality, and embracing of diversity. Discipline and hard-work, in the same way that artists – guitarists, theatre performers, painters – learn, train, and develop their skills, their calling, with joy, and passion and commitment, so that great art appears…. natural. As art.

Peace is not simply a goal or an objective to be hoped for or studied. It is a method, and many methods, a practice, and many practices, a way, and many ways. Praxis, linking theory and method, practice and reflection, and making it real, concrete, viable, practical, for each of us. Conscientisation, Organisation, Mobilisation, Empowerment, and Action, reaching out to build bridges, to link together, to discuss (not as ‘debates’ but as dialogues), to learn from each other and to work together. To refuse to accept, surrender, or give in to the logic of violence and the international of terror, and to have the courage, the creativity, the humility and the passion, to create an international of hope.

As Arundhati Roy has said, another world is possible, and she is on her way. If we listen carefully, we can hear her coming.

She is all of us.

128 Alternatives to War & Actions for Peace

conflict transformation by peaceful means
create a nonviolent peaceforce
real democracy – social, political and economic, local and global
establish peace councils at the local community, national and international levels
develop peace and social forums where we can discuss and understand together what is happening, and what can be done, how we can act, developing strategies and initiatives at every level
flood war-zones with peace workers
create local democracy and human rights movements
ban biological and chemical weapons and all weapons of mass destruction
ban all weapons
support the creation of a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East
support the creation of a conference on security and cooperation in the Middle East
support the creation of peace zones
promote, call for and develop peace education in schools and in our communities, organizations and media
celebrate difference and diversity
refuse to be silent in the face of injustice, violence and oppression
respect yourself and others
have the courage to act
discuss with your friends about what you think should be done
discuss with your colleagues, family, students what is happening and things we can do for peace
promote and protect human rights
demand full employment and respect for the right to work, and to play
local, national and international peace festivals
government and citizens’ diplomacy
build and further strengthen and develop links between the peace and social justice movements
participatory economics and politics
justice
cancel debts and make reparations for the historical crimes of slavery and colonialism
learn about nonviolence and alternatives to war
celebrate the legacy of nonviolence, women’s movements, human rights struggles, struggles for democracy and social justice, and peace movements in our communities and world-wide
nonviolent direct action
communication, cooperation, commitment
solidarity, real, meaningful, and practiced in our daily lives
get involved
conscientious objection to war and action to prevent and stop it
practice empathy and don’t practice demonisation, dehumanization, creating enemy-images and stereotyping
do unto others as you would have done unto yourself
civilian observers
hospitality, inviting people into your home, welcoming them and offering them the best that you have, and actively inquiring, listening, to their stories, experiences, and journeys
multiculturalism & multi-cultural education
practice fair trade
end weapons production
consciousness raising
peace journalism
say no to racism
freedom to use one’s mother-tongue
learn another language
dialogue
nonviolent peacekeeping
sustainable development and renewable energy resources
reduce, reuse, recycle
freedom of speech and expression
universal franchise
support local production
freedom of belief and religion
strengthen student movements
peace monitors
feed the hungry + ask why they’re hungry
abolish economic systems which structurally produce hunger
hope
people’s power
end child labour
lover your ‘enemy’
have the courage to not have enemies
clean water
protect the environment
Save Rosia Montana
production for meeting basic human needs
end arms trade
end sex trade and all forms of sexual abuse and violence
fellowship of reconciliation
end torture
abolish immunity and abuse of power
abolish land mines
democratize local and global economics
have the courage not to support what you know is wrong
free and well-financed public schools
support public libraries
strengthen the United Nations
save the rain forests and the thousands of species threatened with extinction
develop eco-friendly communities and economies
establish an international currency transaction tax
strengthen the international criminal court
free trade unions
freedom to marry by mutual consent
freedom of association
rule of law
transparency
sanitation
solar and wind power and other forms of renewable energy
restorative justice
effective public medical care
political freedom
respect and care for the elderly
fast for peace
work for peace
don’t be afraid to dream
public transit
speak truth to power
speak truth to ourselves
analyze, and come up with proposals for what can be done, what I/we can do
empower, strengthen, support, and join women’s movements and organisations
peacebuilding
peace museums
grassroots peacemaking
reconciliation and healing
apologize
forgive
film and video exchanges
artists for peace
expose lies and rumours
expose truths and hidden histories of peace making, peace building and liberation
nuclear disarmament
witness for peace
share world resources… responsibly, fairly, and with justice
swadeshi - self-reliance
sarvodaya – well-being for all
random acts of kindness
organized acts of hope and transformation
write and sing peace songs
public day care
freedom from arbitrary arrest
freedom of conscience
freedom from arbitrary search and seizure
have the courage to say no to war
know that another world is possible
know that you/we are the one who can make it real
be the change you want to see!
add your own ideas, proposals, and actions…

Towards a tapestry of hope

“There is no way to peace, peace is the way; to be taken, now.” Johan Galtung

“...the economic, social and political order in which we live was built up largely by violence, is now being extended by violence and is maintained by violence.” A. J. Muste

“The hypocrisy involved in asserting that the government represents the people is exposed when the people, in large numbers, make visible their opposition to the government.”Gail M. Presbey

“...if the people have power, violence is superfluous.” Gail M. Presbey

“Often the organised solidarity of the “masters” is enough to make rule over the people possible if the people are unorganised.” Gail M. Presbey

“It does the cause of human rights no good to inveigh against civil and political rights deviations while helping to perpetuate illiteracy, malnutrition, disease, infant mortality and a low life-expectancy among millions of human beings. All the dictators and all the aggressors throughout history, however ruthless, haven’t succeeded in creating as much misery and suffering as the disparities between the world’s rich and poor sustain today.” Shridath Ramphal

“Over the expanse of five continents throughout the coming years an endless struggle is going to be pursued between violence and friendly persuasion, a struggle in which, granted, the former has a thousand times the chances of success than that of the latter. But I have always held that, if he who bases his hopes on human nature is a fool, he who gives up in the face of circumstances is a coward.” Albert Camus

“...modern war has become an institution and...being an institution war can be abolished.” Konrad Lorenz

“He who abuses you has only two eyes, has but two hands, one body, and has naught but what has the least man of the great and infinite number of your cities, except for the advantage you give him to destroy you.” Etienne de La Boetie

“A commercial company enslaves a nation comprising two hundred millions. Tell this to a man free from superstition and he will fail to grasp what these words mean. What does it mean that thirty thousand men ... have subdued two hundred millions...? Do not the figures make it clear that it is not the English who have enslaved the Indians but the Indians who have enslaved themselves?” Leo Tolstoy

“It is not the violence of the few that scares me, it is the silence of the many.” Martin Luther King Jr

“...if they [tyrants] are given nothing, if they are not obeyed, without fighting, without striking a blow, they remain naked and undone, and do nothing further, just as the root, having no soil or food, the branch withers and dies.” Etienne de La Boetie

“A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.” Henry David Thoreau

“In the code of the Satyagrahi, there is no such thing as surrender to brute force.” Gandhi

“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” Gandhi

“Working for peace, then, is working for the transformation of the world.” Adam Curle

“Free trade for a country which has become industrial, whose population can and does live in cities, whose people do not mind preying upon other nations and, therefore, sustain the biggest navy to protect their unnatural commerce, may be economically sounds (though, as the reader perceives, I question its morality). Free trade for India has proved her curse and held her in bondage.” M.K. Gandhi

“No matter how elaborate and well built a structure may be, if its foundations are sand, its future is shaky.”

“No challenge to the proliferating experiences of people’s powerlessness succeeds when conceived and implemented inside the institutional and intellectual framework which produced it.” Gustavo Esteva & Madhu Suri Prakash

“States are built by violence and are maintained by force that has become an institution, a camouflage of violence that is henceforth unperceived even by those who suffer from it.” Raymond Aron

“Every philosophy is practical, even the one which at first appears to be the most contemplative. Its method is a social and political weapon.” Sartre

“Blindness in intellectuals is not a natural calamity that simply befalls them as a matter of unavoidable destiny but a self-induced condition.” Istvan Meszaros

“Non-cooperation on military matters should be an essential moral principle for all true scientists.” Einstein

“I do not know whether it is a duty to sacrifice happiness and life to truth. But this much I know, that it is our duty, if we desire to teach truth, to teach it wholly or not at all, to teach it clearly and bluntly, unenigmatically, unreservedly, inspired with full confidence in its powers. The cruder an error, the shorter and more direct is the path leading to truth. But a highly refined error is likely to keep us permanently estranged from truth, and will do so all the more readily in proportion as we find it difficult to realise that it is an error. One who thinks of conveying to mankind truths masked and rouged, may be truth’s pimp, but has never been truth’s lover.” Rosa Luxemburg

“The demand to give up illusions about the existing state of affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs which needs illusions.” Marx

“In the metaphor of a house, the foundation is the people’s consent, and no matter how impressive the roof of army, police, or secret files, if the foundation gives way, the house will fall.” George Lakey

“Only through popular struggle can the people gain a freedom they can keep.” George Lakey

“Economic equality is the master key to nonviolent independence... a nonviolent system of government is clearly an impossibility so long as the wide gulf between the rich and the hungry millions persist.” Gandhi

“To answer brutality with brutality is to admit one’s moral and intellectual bankruptcy and it can only start a vicious circle.” Gandhi

“...counter violence can only result in further brutalisation of human nature.” Gandhi

“An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind.” Gandhi

“To accept violence is itself violence.” Johan Galtung

“It is one mark of swaraj not to allow any outside power in the world to exercise control over oneself. And the second mark of swaraj is not to exercise power over any other. These two things together make swaraj–no submission and no exploitation.” Vinoba Bhave

“Peace is a revolutionary idea; ‘peace by peaceful means’ defines that revolution as nonviolent. That revolution is taking place all the time; our job is to expand it in scope and domain. The tasks are endless; the question is whether we are up to them.” Johan Galtung

“Mon pa mas que grandi e ka na tapa ceu” – “No fist is beg enough to hide the sky” (Peasant saying in Guinea Creole)

“...satyagraha is not a subject for research – you must experience it, use it, live by it.” Gandhi

“The International of Hope. Not the bureaucracy of hope, not an image inverse to, and thus similar to, what is annihilating us. Not power with a new sign or new clothes. A flower, yes, that flower of hope. A song, yes, the song of life.

Dignity is that country without nationality, that rainbow that is also a bridge, that murmuring of a heart regardless of the blood within it, that rebel irreverence that scoffs at borders, customs agents and wars.

Hope is that rebelliousness that rejects conformism and defeat.

… There is no need to conquer the world. It is enough that we make it again. We. Today.”

The Declaration of La Realidad

some websites which can be useful

Peace

Alliance for Conflict Transformation www.conflicttransformation.org

Conflict Research Consortium www.colorado.edu/conflict/index_orig.html

Conflict Resolution Information Source www.crinfo.org

CONTACT – Conflict Transformation Across Cultures www.sit.edu/contact

EMU Conflict Transformation Programme www.emu.edu/ctp

European Peace University www.aspr.ac.at

Hague Appeal for Peace www.haguepeace.org/